We are live for a new episode of The Electric Podcast. I am Fred Liebert, your host. And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Wintraub. How are you doing today, Seth? I'm good.
All right, all right. And this episode of the Electric Podcast is brought to you by AnyHill. You can check out AnyHill's latest UM2 electric scooters featuring a new powerful brushless motor with a maximum 750-watt motor output power and detachable LG battery pack. You can check out their website, AnyHill, for more details. But we're also going to have a little bit more to say about them later on the show. Thanks to them for sponsoring the podcast this week. If you haven't... If you're...
Well, if you're listening to that would be that would be important. But both if you're watching on the video, you might see that I'm on a different location right now. This is the first time I'm trying out the new podcast studio that I'm building. It's not complete yet. We're still a lot of improvement to do. So if you guys have any feedback in terms of like the video and the sound, that would be welcome. But hopefully everything should we did a few tests before it should be fairly smooth.
But if audio doesn't match, please let us know. That would be super helpful. Let's jump in. We have a few news items to discuss in the EV world this week. And then we're going to jump into your questions and comments. So if you guys have any questions about any of the...
news item we discussed today or any other topics in the EV community that you think were interesting to elaborate on please put them in the comment section right now i want to get to them in about 30 40 minutes something like that we're going to start out with an FSD full self-driving beta update that Tesla started pushing this week to employees and i think they are just now starting to reach
like the core group like this last kind of like levels of uh people in the beta it's not like it's not everyone is equal in the beta it's uh normally it starts well there's always internal testing with the actual engineers working on autopilot and full self-driving then there is the wider internal fleet where it's employee testing but it's not necessarily employees that are
on the FSD program or Autopilot program. They're just testing for Tesla and keeps everything close to the family. Then there's like the first phase of the earliest beta testers. Normally, let's say that the beta testers that Tesla trusts the most maybe. And I think we're there right now with this new software update, which is software update...
10.69.3. So Tesla is not shifting to the weak number instead now. They're just sticking with 69 because Elon loves that number. And so now we have the version 3 of that 69 version. Based on the release note, there's not a lot of new features in this update. It's not doing things that it wasn't capable of doing before necessarily. It's more like a wide ranging of high-level features
neural net updates that improve the overall performance of the system. So we can go through a few of them just to let you guys know. But if you're not familiar with the test of FSD release, they're kind of technical, very technical.
So upgraded object detection networks. So object detection, that's all capitalized. So that means that's an actual neural net. So this has like dozens of neural nets working and each time they improve one, it can improve the performance. So the object detection network has been upgraded to photon count video streams and retain all parameters with the latest auto-labeled data set with a special emphasis on low visibility scenarios. So it sounds like this is now able to do better
with low visibility, so you often get that. I was driving a lot earlier this week on FSD, and I would often get alerts of the visibility is not great right now, and it felt like maybe the FSD wanted to get off, but still, again, I didn't have the update at that point.
But it's not doing as good as it should be, so it lets you know. So that might have improved with this update here. Also an improved architecture for better accuracy and latency, higher recall for faraway vehicles, lower velocity error for crossing vehicles by 20%, and improved VRU precision by 20%. So significant numbers improvement here.
And yeah, there's a lot of those in there. A lot of road markings improvement, like 38.9% for lane topology error at intersections. So that's great because there's a lot of times where it acts weird intersection where it...
it sorts of doesn't it doesn't go by the line necessarily it goes by the um the stop signs instead or something like that which is as you i mean i don't know about everywhere i'm sure that's different in different markets but uh here often you would see like the stop sign being in a position that's just optimized for people seeing the stop sign versus the actual stop line which uh you
if you know how to drive you're supposed to stop at a stop line um so a lot a lot of different uh neural nets upgrade on this one we haven't tried the update just yet i i did see an update in my coming to my car i just didn't had a chance to go to it i wish tesla when because they now that they let you uh update your car your software through the app you don't need you used to have to go to the car and accept the update now you can do everything to the app i wish they would also let you know what's the update in the app
You can authorize it to install it, you can install it from the app, but then you have to go to your car to see the release notes, see what's up. So I wish they would let you know straight in the app. So as soon as we get the update, we're going to do a little testing. I just got a new nice little camera mount for my car. So I won't need to have my girlfriend in the car filming me when I do FSD beta test, which should make things smoother.
Not having her stressed like, hey, what is car doing when the car is doing? Which I can understand. All right. Speaking of FSD Beta, Tesla gave last week a demonstration to the California DMV for the FSD Beta. So if you haven't been following, there's like a little feud going on between the California DMV and Tesla, especially since the California DMV is in charge in California to oversee any issues
driver assist vehicle program and full self-driving up to full self-driving so level two up to level five and uh the the request things like disengagement reports things like accident reports obviously and tesla is being able to get away from that by just claiming that their their system is not self-driving even though they call it that it's in beta and it requires driver attention all the time and so so they basically like play with the
terminology to to not have to report which has been criticized a lot because the logic behind it is as simple as like they don't want to give any data that can be used against them uh and you know tesla said that before i mean it was in the uh nda that uh early beta testers were signing like don't give any ammunition to the critics they said which is uh
Which is kind of a weird thing to do for something as important as this. Like when safety is involved, like I understand like any tech company are very close to their data. They don't want to share anything, but
But in this case here, it's such a big thing to try to achieve, trying to achieve self-driving vehicle and involve the safety of not just the people in the Tesla vehicles, but people in the world in general. So I feel like Tesla should be a little bit more open with their data here, at least as open as other companies are doing it, like Waymo is sharing the data on that front and everything. I know there's... That's what's so confusing people because there are clear differences between the way Tesla is doing self-driving and companies like Waymo and Cruise. So...
There is an argument to be made which they shouldn't be treated the same. But ultimately, they are all trying to do the same thing. It's just achieve self-driving. And we need ways to track progress other than just anecdotal experiences that you see beta testers having. And Elon, in this case, what was really interesting here is that Tesla was kind of against Tesla.
doing the demonstration, not because the DMV was involved, but because they had three advisors with them too that they were going to be present at the demonstration. And Tesla, more specifically Jennifer Cohen, Tesla's head of policies and business development in California, wrote a letter to Miguel Acosta, who was in charge of the autonomous vehicle programs at the DMV, saying that they were not comfortable with the consultant being there because they previously had negative comments about Tesla's self-driving effort.
And it's interesting because we're not talking about like Taylor, Taylor Hogan and people like that kind of critics. We're talking about like people that are like mild comments to like everyone can give you an example. So.
someone named stever steven oh boy that's a tough name schlod schladdover i'm sorry if i missed mr steven uh he's a transport research engineer at the university of california at berkeley which like you know is a he's in that space and he said that the tesla's use of the term self-driving has been very damaging and uh i mean it's
It's not that harsh of a thing to say. I mean, it's kind of true that Tesla has been kind of loose in the use of the term self-driving because they've been selling a self-driving package for six years and they are never delivered actual self-driving. So there's definitely room for critics here. Brian Walker Smith, an athlete scholar at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. All he said really is that he thinks that Tesla is
testers FSD beta should follow the same rules as the other autonomous vehicle program that are being tested in California, which is, I assume, what the DMV is
The reason why the DMV is testing it right now, they might decide after the demonstration, like, yeah, this is kind of what we're here for. We're here to monitor that kind of things. And if you don't share the data with us, we won't be able to monitor this. So it looks like that guy might have already his mind set on this. So like this is like, yeah, well, whatever.
If I was Tesla, I would be like, all right, this is an opportunity to change their mind. And, you know, Elon is always saying the same thing when people are asking him about the FSD beta these days. He's always, just try it for yourself. You're going to see how great it is. Like, well, have the critics try it and see if you can change their mind. But kind of disappointed that there wasn't Tesla's approach here. They were like, yeah, how about you? Don't have the advisor comes. And then when are we going to find out what they thought about it?
Well, I don't know if we are exactly ever going to find that out. But the DMV right now looks to be considering if they should force Tesla to release that data. So that's going to be the next step, I think. But there's even talk about the DMV even having issues with Tesla's nomenclature when it comes to their packages. So autopilot and full self-driving, they might want to force Tesla to change the way they address those. Yeah.
And we know there's a few things going on at the same time right now. There's reportedly this DOG investigation into Tesla's use of those terms and promises related to full self-driving. There's this class action lawsuit going on at the same time. There's a bunch of things like Tesla has a lot to deal with when it comes to this. Of course, they can always just surprise everyone and actually deliver the full self-driving system and that would shut everybody up.
But right now, I think the lawyers need to get involved because it doesn't seem to be close to do that. I mean, even if Tesla had a 99.99 effective full self-driving and it was as good or even better than humans, the government and all these municipalities would have a hard time running through it and okaying it, I think. So even when Tesla does get and everybody else does get to
a full self-driving that is as good as humans, there's still going to be some work to do after that. Oh, for sure. That's what Elon called it, the race to the nines. How many nines are you going to need to really do it? So that's that. I agree with him. And it's going to be, like you said, it's going to be different, too, depending on what kind of entities, regulators are in charge and what markets. But for sure, I think that's not going to be that big of an issue because
Especially as soon as, especially a big market gives the green light, I think because of the impact being so strong in Europe,
like everyone can imagine just if you have it through self-driving, let's say like three or four nines after the 99. So it's extremely safe, safer than human. The impact is so big on this market that other markets are just going to have to follow, even though they might need a little bit more reassurance. But
At this point, Tesla has other issues than just that too, than the regulators. There is a serious question whether Tesla can achieve full self-driving with their current approach to start with. A lot of people have questions about that. And at this point, even though Elon says that exponential improvement with full self-driving beta proves that they can do it, a lot of people just don't see it.
And I used to be very optimistic about that, even though I have been critical of full self-driving beta. The more I use it, the harder it is for me to see them closing the gap with the current hardware that they have. It's scary, really. Especially for someone who paid $4,000 for this thing. Yeah. Can you imagine people paying $15,000? No, I can't. I can't even imagine right now. Yeah.
So speaking of the full self-driving program, Andrew Caperti, when he left this summer, that was a big hit for him. He was a big part of it, obviously, leading computer vision and artificial intelligence at Tesla for five years. And he basically built the AI team at Tesla. And he had a very interesting podcast appearance on the Lex Freeman podcast, which is a podcast I recommend to everyone.
Yeah, it's good. Maybe not the Kanye West one. I think people should just stop giving a platform for Kanye West until the... Wait, Kanye West went on Lux? Yeah, I mean, it was the reason. Yeah, yeah, right after his comment about Jewish people. Oh, wow. Nice. Yeah, I mean, we don't need to get in that, obviously, but...
I mean, it was the best one in everything that Kanye did lately, like the Piers Morgan one and everything. I don't know about that. So I think Lex did it with the right intention, but I'm of the opinion that when someone is obviously having like a...
psychotic episode or whatever the term is for mental issues that Kanye West has. I feel like you just don't give him a platform for a little bit, let him get better. And then like, all right, let him explain his, uh, his obviously like, but the opposite is true. Like every single person wants to interview him because they know he's going to say something crazy. Yeah. It's clickbait for you right there. But I, I really liked Friedman's approach to it, but I, I,
Obviously, this is... Kanye West is a billionaire visionary, that's how he wants to be called. But Friedman mainly interviews engineers and scientists and it's always extremely interesting because he's obviously incredibly knowledgeable but still knows how to approach it in a way that even non-technical people can get something out of it. And that was no exception for the Andre interview.
And obviously, he addressed, first of all, he addressed why he left Tesla, which according to Andre, it was because his position at Tesla was becoming too managerial. Like it was all about meetings. It was all about hiring people and everything. And not as much hardcore engineering, which he likes to do. So he decided to step away from that.
Which I would assume, I'm sure that's partly true, but I would believe that there's a little bit more to it than that because I'm sure that if he just told Elon, I'm managing, I'm tired of managing right now and I just want to step away and do actual engineering or whatever or put me on another project that I can just do by myself or whatever.
Or having like a small, like what do you call it? The team where there's no bosses, like Valve does that. Like a flat...
It's not a hierarchy, but there's no budget. Everyone works with each other. He could have done something like that. I'm sure that when you have someone like that on your team, Andre, like Kaepernick, you don't want to lose him. So you're not saying, no, if you're not a manager anymore, I don't want you to work. So I'm sure there's a little bit more to it than that. There's probably something else he wants to do. But of course, he says he wants to work with AGI, but Tesla is also wanting to work with AGI.
Who knows? But then, interestingly, he said that he's not against the fact of coming back to Tesla. So he said it would be interesting to come back and especially mention Optimus, the robot, and AGI again, because he knows that Tesla wants to contribute. That's how Elon presented it, contribute to achieving artificial general intelligence.
And Elon quickly responded to that he would be always welcome at Tesla. All right. This I found really interesting and potentially very big for Tesla here. I know it sounds like a small thing, but there was a report this week that Tesla is sending up to 200 Chinese engineers that work at Tia Factory Shanghai, and they are sending them to Fremont Factory to optimize the factory for higher volume production.
So this is significant. 200 engineers, no joke. This is a big input that can have a massive impact on a short period of time. And obviously what Tesla is trying to do here is replicate the success that is Gigafactory Shanghai because I repeated it in my article here. But if you're not familiar with the timeline, Tesla broke ground in 2019, early 2019, and started production by the end of that year.
And now, three years later, the factory is producing a million vehicles per year on an annualized basis. I don't think they're going to end 2022 with a production of a million, but on a weekly basis, now they have a production capacity of a million cars. So,
this is this isn't like never seen a thing in the auto industry ever like there's no faster rim from like from break not just like zero production from breaking ground yeah like a dirt field too yeah a mud like a mud pit like i don't know if you remember this yeah the the land that they get factory shanghai but it was basically a mud pit and uh they turned that into a factory that's producing a million vehicles per year and not just like a million like crappy vehicles because i know like that's the that's
That's the thing that people always come up with when we talk about Chinese manufacturing. It's like, yeah, but it's just about cheap labor and things like it. Yes, cheap labor helps. There's no doubt about it. But you cannot deny just Chinese engineering talent, especially when you come from manufacturing. Because I pull out this stat in my article here, too. Let me see.
Look it up to make sure I'm not mistaken. So in 2020, China produced 1.3 million engineering bachelor degrees. Compared to the U.S., that's less than 200,000. And I couldn't find the data exactly because I know that 200,000 includes computer science engineering in the U.S.,
I don't know if 1.38 million in China includes computer science. But here's the other thing too. So in pure number, like the BDOS, of course, you can talk about quality, like is the quality different and everything. I'm not exactly willing to say that computer degree in China is worse than a computer degree in the US to start with. But also what I want to say is that
out of these 1.3 million new engineers that they have in China, what's the percentage of them that goes to manufacturing instead of going to other engineering fields that are a little bit more flash? At least in the US, it's a little bit more flash. People say that they're going to go into manufacturing. It's not as interesting that if they tell you that they go, I'm going to electrical engineering, I'm going to mechanical engineering, things like that. They focus on industrial manufacturing.
It's just not as flashy in the US. But in China, it is because they have a strong manufacturing industry. So there's a little more engineering going there. You can deny that. Those are just facts. So obviously, you're going to end up with a different level of talent there.
And, um, and Tesla took full advantage of that and gigafactory Shanghai is the, is the result. So now they want to replicate that in the U S by bringing the talent here. You, you, you hear that a lot, like back in the days, like this is not like new, like Tesla didn't like just came up with that idea. You remember like, especially in the nineties and eighties, like when, when, when, uh, Toyota like just established its manufacturing dominance in the, in the auto industry. Um,
They would bring a lot of Japanese engineers to the U.S. to optimize their factories in the U.S. here, like instead of just hiring a bunch. So there's a lot. There's a generation of automotive manufacturing engineers in the U.S. that have been trained by Japanese engineers. That's kind of an interesting factoid right there. Hey, you want to know another interesting factoid? Go ahead. I got my degree in industrial and systems engineering.
So I spent a lot of time looking at factories in school and didn't use it at all. Yeah, right away you went into IT, right? I forgot. I thought your degree was in IT. No. Engineering. Yeah, because there was like nowhere to go to work in the US. When you went to China, you went to work in IT too. Yeah, I was in IT. Yeah, so...
And specifically, the report from Bloomberg says that they're going to Fremont to optimize Fremont. We know that Tesla has been trying to ramp up Fremont. So right now it's about 600,000 units per year that you can produce. And in the past, you know, let's talk about like a million unit possible in Fremont. But Fremont is packed up real tight. So they might have to revise that goal. But I can see it probably get to like 700, 750, something like that, which would make a big difference.
And also you can imagine if that trip of those 200 engineers is successful in Fremont, you can imagine they'll be making a trip in Texas soon too and maybe one in Berlin. Yeah, I mean, that just on a high level makes a lot of sense. Like you want to cross-pollinate your, you know, your learnings. So, you know, makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Bring a few Chinese engineers, a few translators and just increase your output. Yeah.
i guess staying with tesla in china we reported last week on the the price cuts that tesla did in china for uh the model 3 model y significant like five ten percent private cut on those two vehicles and then suspicion of uh new of um not tax credit but the incentive going away and the um so we we got the numbers for that's september
No, September was the numbers for October, and they're down from September from 83,000 units to 71,000 units. That's the output of the U.S. military sharing high. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that, to be honest, because month-to-month is not really the way to look at it. Year-over-year, obviously, is the best way, but...
If you want to stay more short term, you better have to go to the same month of the previous quarter. So in this case, October was the first month of the fourth quarter. So you go to the first month of the third quarter. But in this case, that's not good either because that was July. And July decided the factory shut down. So they just produced 28,000 units. But I wouldn't be worried too much about the month-to-month decrease.
But what we are hearing is that the price cuts are already having an impact on the demand for Tesla vehicles in China because, at least according to Mr. Jeff Chong from a city analyst, they did a dealership check. So I assume that they call dealerships and they check the backlogs there. And they say that... Let me quote it directly so I know.
paraphrase we sense uh tesla's recent price cut strategy has created a negative spillover effect where a lot of china ev brands order backlog and suffer significant order cancellation
according to our dealership channel checks. So this is interesting. He didn't name the specific one, but I would assume things like NIO and Xpeng and things like that, which are closest as direct competitors. Of course, BYD, but BYD is not having any issues. They're delivering 200,000 vehicles a month in China, something like that. Of course, some of them are hybrids, plug-in hybrids, not all electric, but still.
All right, we got good news from Panasonic. We reported last month that they selected Kansas City for the...
for the second battery factory in the U.S. after Gigatech, Terry Nevada, which they share with Tesla. And now they announced that they're breaking ground, actually. I think they did it yesterday, though they announced earlier this week. What they announced is actually the capacity that they plan to have there. So the plan, specifically, the breaking ground is at DeSoto, Kansas, which is just outside of Kansas City on the Kansas side. Because, of course, Kansas City is split in half with...
Missouri. And they are planning a 30 gigawatt hour capacity there. So it's a significant capacity, not quite what they're doing in Gigafactory Nevada, but still a decent output. And interestingly, so we thought that might be a factory where they would focus on 4680 battery cell production. So the new format that Tesla is adopting, but Tesla itself has been kind of weird about the rollout of the 4680, where we thought they would be in
like the Tesla Semi, for example, and it's not. Even the Cybertruck is kind of in the air, whether it's going to use 4680 or not. So we don't know what's really happening with 4680. And in this case, Panasonic confirmed that they're going to produce 2170, at least at first. So they're talking about first phase. So they say that they're going to be higher output, higher than 30 gigawatt hour.
and maybe even different formats of cell produced at the factory. But for now, for the first phase, it's going to be 2170 up to 30 gigawatt hour. And in terms of the timing, like I said, they're breaking ground right now. And sorry, I'm trying to find out unless they didn't share it exactly when they expected production to start. No.
playing it safe panasonic not sharing uh yeah uh mass production targeted to begin end of march 2025 so we still have a little ways to to go here but uh yeah 30 gigawatt hour more battery production coming to the us that's still quite significant uh should we do a little hat read for our friends at any hill yeah
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All right. Next on the roll for news item is the EQE pricing being launched in the U.S. So we have official pricing for the EQE starting at $75,000. So we're kind of excited for the EQE because even though we really like the EQS, it's not cheap.
uh starts at 105 000 something like that yeah over 100 great yeah it's it's not cheap and the eqe is uh actually i like the format a little bit more it's a little bit smaller it's uh i like even though look a little bit better they are similar it's a little bit less round a little bit more aggressive looking um and uh it's a little bit cheaper no not extremely cheaper it's still a mercedes and it's still like uh like in the higher hand of like it's the equivalent of the e-class really so it's not like a c-class or something like that
So they release all the trims, all the packages and the pricing for them. And it starts with the 350 plus at $75,000. And then that's with the premium package, which includes things like navigation services, parking, surround view system, litter, upholstery. So at least it starts with litter and panoramic roof.
And then you can upgrade to an exclusive package which adds the augmented reality for navigation, which Seth has been really impressed with when he tried it on the E2S, I think. Yeah. And driver as this package system.
That adds $2,000 to the deal. And then you have the Pinnacle package, which includes the four zone climate control, air balance package, energizing comfort, heads up display. Oh, I thought the heads up display was the augmented reality navigation that we're talking about. I'm a little bit confused about that.
a 100 watt usbc package that's weird that you have to get the pinnacle package to get usbc 100 watts in front and the digital light package and that starts at 80 000 and then you have the uh 350 4matic and then eqe 500 4matic so that obviously is the all-wheel drive package and then the uh 500 i think is the bigger battery pack i would assume yeah the 90 uh okay no there's the same battery pack
Okay, that's not clear. Aside from pricing, we mostly only know the spec of the 350, so we'll need to follow up with further details, especially the IRL and the US dealership coming soon. The EQE 500 4MATIC should be a dual motor, all-wheel drive variant, so they will have an effect on the range. Okay, that's... It sounds like they haven't released the specs of the 350 and 500 4MATIC, but...
I would assume that both the 350 4MATIC and 500 4MATIC are all-wheel drive because that's normally what Mercedes calls 4MATIC. And the 500 has a bigger battery pack, in my opinion. And that one starts at $86,000 with the premium package and goes up to $91,000 with the Pinnacle package.
And we expect deliveries to dealership by the end of the year for the 2023 model year Mercedes-Benz EQE. Pretty excited for this one. Yeah, you know, when we looked at those things together, like in Germany...
My biggest takeaway was like, the EQE looks pretty good. And it's almost too close to the EQS in terms of size and appearance. It's like, you know, if you want to sell something for $100,000, you can't make something almost as good at $75,000. So I think those are going to really sell well, the EQEs. Yeah, I mean, it's an easier sell too. Obviously, they're not going to be
eligible to the tax credit. But still, if you're in the market for a premium sedan, yeah, it's an easier sell than the EQS for sure. The EQS is more like it's near super car level. All right. This was an interesting one here.
Check out that headline. Subaru won't build electric cars in the US because it can't compete with McDonald's wages. So that sounds like clickbait, right? But it's not. It's actually a completely accurate headline. It's exactly what's happening. So if you're familiar with Subaru's effort in the electric vehicle market, and if you're not, don't worry. I can sum it up to you real quick. It's the Subaru Solterra. That's it. And it's not even that exciting because it's basically a reskinned
uh Toyota bz4x I always have issues with that name it's probably one of the worst names yeah in the EV industry yeah it's it's not even their car basically these produced by Toyota and badged by them it's um yeah and it's not great but and also it's not going to get their the tax credit because it's not produced in North America it needs um since August all electric vehicles that want to have the tax it needs to be assembled
in North America. And then next year, there's a bunch of other criteria related to the battery production, battery component, and the critical minerals that are inside those batteries. But they don't even have to worry about that because as long as it's not assembled in North America, it's not going to get it anyway.
And so, of course, that resulted in a lot of foreign automakers looking into producing EVs in the U.S. And we reported on dozens of investments like that over the last year in anticipation for the change in the federal tax credit and since it's been made official in reaction to it.
But so during the last earnings calls from Subaru, and Subaru had the great earnings, like they're still doing well, but I think the clock is ticking for them now because of how slow they are to move to electric. And they were asked about it. So what are you going to do about the US market with electric vehicles? Like you're going to have a tougher time to compete, especially at the lower end, the 75, like,
Tesla gave a lot of hope to everyone because they lost the tax credit years ago and they still dominate sales in the U.S. So people are like, do you really need the tax credit to be successful on the U.S. EV market? And the answer is no. But Tesla is definitely at the higher end of the market, though they have some cheaper options.
And Subaru is kind of lower hand to mid-market, though it's kind of premium vehicles for some people, but I'm talking price-wise here. Like on the $45,000 vehicle like the Solterra, $7,500 make a big difference. So if you don't get that, then you can get it on another car that's similar in terms of performance. Obviously, you're going to go in the car that you can get the $7,500. So it's an issue. So during the earnings call, the CEO, Mr. Tonomi,
Nakumara was asked, do you have any plan to build EVs in the US?
And I'm going to read the quote here because it's kind of comical. But the reference to Indiana is the fact that Subaru already has a plant in Indiana where they employ about 6,000 people when they produce the Ascent, the Impreza, the Legacy, and the Outback. So you reference that because it would make sense for them if they have an EV plant that they would do like a Zool plant system like kind of Volkswagen has in Chattanooga, for example.
So he says, in Indiana, part-time workers at McDonald's earn $20 to $25 per hour, which is in competition with what temporary workers make at our plant. If we were to build a new plant, it would be very difficult to hire new people for that. Labor costs are rising now. It is quite challenging for us to secure workers for an Indiana plant, including those of suppliers.
So he says basically they cannot compete with McDonald's for amid the labor shortages. So it's not going to happen. That sucks. Yeah. It's not only it sucks, but it's kind of a,
it's not really inspiring at all like this is this is our leader this is our ceo and he's like yeah like i cannot pay the same wages that mcdonald's pay so like we're talking about building like a 45 a 45 000 product here extremely complex product with 10 000 parts in it
And you cannot pay them the same wage that McDonald's pay their people that makes $5 burgers. I'm sure it's a problem. I understand the labor shortage is definitely a problem that needs solving. But I'll tell you, we try to solve it instead of just like, oh, but McDonald's just decided to pay them $20 an hour. We can't compete with that. Forget about it. That's not a solution. I'm sure there's things that can be done here.
But it sounds like Subaru won't be the one to do it. No. I mean, right now, Subaru, their only plans is to have their own dedicated EV production in Japan in 2027. So Japan is obviously their own market. So that's their next step here. And by next step, I mean going from now, which is we have this rebranded Toyota EV that we're selling, which is not great either. And Toyota is having a lot of issues with their own version of it.
Wheels falling off, etc. Yeah, and that's small issues. To five years from now, we're going to have our own production in Japan. So only in the market. And here's, in my opinion, a bigger problem. With electric vehicles, it becomes a lot easier to make an all-wheel drive vehicle. So Subaru's thing was always like, hey, we can make all-wheel drive vehicles that perform well and don't break down and all that other stuff.
But now, you know, VW's got an all wheel drive, Tesla's got an all wheel drive, like every Hyundai, Kia, everybody's got an all wheel drive, you know, crossover. So what is what is Subaru got now? Like they make gas versions of all wheel drive vehicles, but there's much better electric ones everywhere. So I don't know. I wouldn't buy Subaru stock right now. I don't think I would go anywhere near it. No, no, no.
Yeah, I agree. They have to give up on their marketing of we have the best all-wheel drive. They tried it with the Solterra and I think everyone that has like two brain cells were like, okay, you just have a dual powertrain here. It's about differential, like linkage, none of that. It's just two motors, yeah. Right.
So, yeah, I mean, they do have other, like, they have, like, safety, like, good safety record. And they do advertise that, too, and everything. But I don't think that's... And they have a loyal customer base. I mean, people have Subaru's that, you know, 300,000 miles. Like, in Vermont, they're all over the place. Yeah, go to Vermont, go to Colorado and everything. It's extremely popular there. But, again, it was mainly popular because those are places that get a lot of snow and...
A lot of people believe that they need all-wheel drive when there's snow. And they really thought that, well, I mean, Subaru was, for internal combustion engine, they had a very good all-wheel drive, but it's not comparable to kind of torque you get from an electric motor and a dual electric motor specifically. So yeah, it's not looking good for them unless they have a rapid change of heart and invest heavily. I don't see them.
surviving the transition to electric vehicle. I just don't. Yeah. I mean, maybe they slapped their logo on something else. I guess that's what they're doing with Toyota stuff now, but yeah, like that's it really. They do there in term of like, this is specifically about building EVs in the U S due to the tax credit.
And there is some efforts right now, like Japan, we reported today Japan has been doing it, but the EU has done it too, where they're putting some pressure on the US government to change the rules because obviously they see it as a protectionist rule. It is, but it is and it's like a continental issue.
protectionist rule it's not like a country protectionist rule since technically they say North America it's not just the US it's also benefiting Canada and Mexico but yeah I don't know much about Japan's incentive but there's a lot of incentive in Europe for electric vehicles and they don't have those same protectionist laws so there could be some negotiation going on where
do it all right if you if you want to keep doing this well we're going to do the same in europe for your vehicles that are coming in so we'll see how it plays out but even if that happens even if they do that i don't i don't see like Subaru catching up to anyone at this point no all right should we get into the comment section see if you guys have a few questions too we know we have to have set uh oh yeah we'll get out of here
All right. Will Friedman, what do you think of Elon's comment from the earnings report that Dojo is still an unproven bet? He's not normally one to play down things. Yes, we can confirm the second part. Yeah. Yeah, I was surprised by that, too. I remember that comment being like, oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. That's okay. But...
What we learned from Dojo from the AI day is that it is not a complete project. They don't have the first cluster yet, though they seem to think that they're going to have it Q1 of next year. So it's only months away.
But even that timeline doesn't match with a lot of Elon's own timeline when it comes to self-driving. So it would make sense for him to try to make it clear that he doesn't really need Dojo to achieve that. It would help, but it's not necessary. So yeah, I wasn't completely shocked by the comment, but you're right. It is a deviation from Elon's normal hype machine type of comments. All right. Question from LinkedIn.
uh will they decrease the prices eventually for the majority of society to purchase them wouldn't they make more income if more people were buying them i don't even know what we're talking about yeah i'm kind of confused what we're talking like 408 it would have been uh full self-driving i guess at tesla i don't know gonna have to be a little bit more specific on those yeah or maybe talking about the vehicles and tesla vehicles well huh
all right we'll move on uh gaku ponzi one of the biggest problems is that those in charge of regulation so we're now talking about uh the reluctantly giving self-driving beta demo uh those in charge of regulation of autonomous vehicles are untrained and have little to no experience with their areas of responsibility uh so
I mean, that's a blanket statement. I don't think that's true. There's certainly some truth to it, but I don't think you can apply that to everyone. I'm sure a lot of people are just out there trying to make sure that the deployment of self-driving technology is safe. Oh, so he continues, these so-called third parties that are invited by California DMV have...
One or more conflicts of interest, look into it, always follow the money people. All right, we're putting on the video. Yeah, but at this point, everyone has kind of a conflict of interest when they become autonomous, driving. At some point or another, they work for someone. These people always jump around. You have to take it into account. I agree. But at the same time, Tesla needs to be more open to criticism. It's becoming a problem. All right.
We'll do a few more. KC5GTS says, what do you guys think about Aptera now? Are we optimistic? Yeah, actually, I've been looking into them today. I might have an article coming out. It looks like they officially slipped the production timeline to next year. So until very recently, they were still mentioning production in 2022 at the end of 2022, to be fair. But still, so it sounds like they are slipping to at least deliveries next year. Maybe they still plan a slow start of early production.
But I'm still very optimistic about them because, as we discussed before, it's not a car. It's not categorized as a car. It doesn't have the same regulations. So it's easier to bring to the market. Not necessarily a lot easier. It's easier to bring to production too, but not a lot more easier. So there's going to be challenges on that front.
But I'm still very, very optimistic. I still like the concept. I love the idea of just pushing the efficiency to a whole new level. A lot of people, they look at that thing and they're like, yeah, it's not as useful as my car. I don't want to replace it with my car. I get it. But if the option is out there, a lot of people are going to look at it and like,
You know what? For all the efficiency gains that you get from that, I can adapt that as like, this is going to be my new commuter vehicle. Right. And then like, Seth, you just bought your Chevy Bolt and another Chevy Bolt EV. If you guys have any issues trying to find Chevy Bolt EV out there, it's Seth buying them all. He just bought a new one. Was it today? It's not coming until mid-November.
Okay. So you placed the order today. But I found a place that has a bunch of them. So anybody wants a bowl, give me a DM. And you're going to change your Model 3 for it. So it's going to be your new around town vehicle, your commuter vehicle. And when you go to your skiing trip in Vermont or whatever, you take the Model Y. Exactly. Having the kid, the dog, and all the stuff in there. And full self-driving. Full self-driving.
whenever that comes. Yeah. And, uh, supercharger network though. That's no joke. That's, that's, that's real at Tesla mode. But, um,
Yeah, then I'm not saying that if the Aptera was out there, you would have bought the Aptera instead of the Bolt EV, but I'm sure it would have been in your consideration. Certainly, it would have been in mine. And obviously, with the family, it's not as ideal, but for a single person, for a couple, it makes a ton of sense. It's just so much more efficient. Yeah. All right. That is all the questions.
Yeah, I just want to mention something real quick. I said this was going to be on the podcast, but it's not what you see like right there. If you're watching on the show, you see like those little lights. I cannot show it completely because if I put the back lights on, I'm still working on the studio and make it look cool and everything. Is that a Skybrook mod?
It kind of looks like it in the dark right now with just the lights open. No, it's not the CyberQuad, but it's going to be a CyberQuad competitor and probably going to be on the market before the CyberQuad if I was to bet. And now it's the Terran Reaver, Terran like shall use Terran, and Reaver, R-E-E-V-E-R.
and it's an all electric ATV that I'm going to be testing out this weekend. I'm going to have a video for you guys soon on this channel if you're watching on YouTube and obviously we're going to discuss on the podcast next week. Yeah, what I was saying is like if I show it like with the lights on right now, it's just it screws the whole camera set up because the back lining is just too strong. I'm going to figure something out so that we can
have some cool cars in the back while we do the podcast and something but that's going to be in future episodes if you want to watch future episodes you know what to do you subscribe right now you hit that notification bell and you're going to know we're going to be notified when we are back on which is generally at 4 p.m every friday eastern time but if you subscribe you also get our new videos like the reverb video coming up to you soon you're gonna
If you're listening on your podcast app, please give us a five-star review. It's free to do. It takes a second. It helps the show more than you will ever know. All right. That's it for us this week. Thanks a lot to Annie Hill, too, for sponsoring this episode of The Electric Podcast. And we're going to see you same place, same time next week. Bye-bye.